Features

The slum also rises

This is Rocinha, in Rio — the largest favela in Brazil. For decades it was run by a drugs cartel, but the security forces have now declared it ‘pacified’. So what is it like to live here? The author Misha Glenny takes us on a tour of his home from home

Brazil's biggest slum

One night last November, I thought I had reached rock bottom. I had contracted
a nasty fever, and was sweating and coughing heavily. My first thought was
that this could be tuberculosis. At every entrance to Rocinha, the Rio
favela where I’ve been living on and off for the past year, posters warned
that if you were coughing violently, you were probably suffering from TB and
you had better get to a doctor, quick.

My concerns were soon eclipsed by the sound of a shootout between rival gangs
who were seeking to grab control of a resurgent cocaine trade. I was living
near the top of the favela at Rua Um (Road One), which has for decades been
on the front line of Rocinha’s drug wars. The exchange of fire was happening
within a hundred yards or so of where I was trying to sleep.